


Reflection

by JuweWright



Series: 30 for 30 [4]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Healing, Ministry of Magic, Post-War, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 14:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13836408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuweWright/pseuds/JuweWright
Summary: After Fred's death, Hermione was there to comfort a grieving George. Now, it seems, she is the one who needs help.





	Reflection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elentariel84](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elentariel84/gifts).



> This work is based on a prompt by elentariel84 "George and Hermione. After the war. Hermione is working way too hard after breaking up with Ron. George is still mourning the loss of Fred. George finds out Hermione is in bad shape through his dad and offers her a job at the shop."

_ George tried not to look in any of the windows as he walked past the other shops in Diagon Alley, so he would not see his reflection. He had removed all mirrors from his flat to avoid being exposed to it, but as the world was covered in glass and shining metal surfaces, it had not helped much to relieve his suffering. _

Sometimes, when he walked towards a mirror and did not know it was a mirror, he imagined Fred was walking towards him. It had been three years since the battle, three years since he had lost his twin, but it still hurt the same, every single time he realized that no, it was just his reflection and he was still alone.

Windows were different. His reflection in the window did not give him that brief moment of hope before pushing him back into despair. For so many years of his life, when he had looked into a shop window, it had almost always been with his brother by his side. There had always been two red-haired, freckled Weasley-twins looking back at them. Now, there was only one. There would always be only one. And it made him want to scream and cry and curse the world.

He entered Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes through the back entrance to find Angelina Johnson directing five huge floating stacks of boxes through the door to the saleroom.

“Morning George!” she greeted him with a smile. “New Pygmy Puff delivery has arrived. Finally. I already feared I’d have to turn customers away.”

George gave her a thumbs up and went over to the lab where a new invention was bubbling in a small copper kettle. The mixture in the pot looked syrupy and green, very green, much too green. George frowned and picked up the recipe that was lying on the table, quickly recapitulating what he had done last night before he left. With a sigh, he dropped the piece of parchment as he realized he had forgotten to stir the damned concoction clockwise before adding the dragon blood. He wasn’t sure how it affected the stuff. Possibly, he had just wasted a week’s worth of brewing in one moment of brainlessness, but some of WWW’s best selling products had been accidental inventions, so it was always worth giving the potion a chance.

George sniffed at the blue-ish vapour that rose from the syrup. It smelled pepperminty and a little burnt but definitely non-lethal. He checked the list of ingredients. No, nothing lethal in there, either. He dipped a wooden spoon into the potion and let it drip from it. No burns appeared nor did it affect the spoon in any other way. He repeated the process with a couple of different materials. When nothing was affected, he went over to where Angelina kept the bezoars. Back in the days, Fred and George had tested their products on a dozen mice who lived in a huge cage next to one of the shelves in the storage room. When Angelina had joined the team, she had thrown a fit, adopted the mice and instead organized a huge pile of bezoars to allow for direct human testing.

He was just about to ingest a spoonful of the green syrup, bezoar in his left hand, when the door to the shop opened again and Angelina announced: “Your dad’s here.”

George quickly replaced the spoon and the bezoar and donned his WWW robes before heading into the sales room to greet Arthur Weasley - whose face showed the same expression that it always showed when he visited the shop: A mixture of grief and pride.

“Hey dad!”, George said with a half-smile. “How’s things? Did mum send you again? Yes, I am eating enough. No, my flat has not burned down to the ground yet, due to my atrocious cooking skills. And no, I still don’t have any intention of marrying Angelina.”

Angelina made gurgly noises from behind the counter. Obviously she found the notion of marrying George just as ridiculous as him.

  
Arthur shook his head.

“No, Molly didn’t send me, even though I bet she will be delighted to hear you’re well. And she’ll probably go off on another rant how you are the only one of her boys not bringing a girl home - although she has been pretty horrified by Ron bringing that Pansy person home lately, so she might give you a pass.”

George sighed. Ron breaking up with Hermione had hit Mrs Weasley hard. Molly had liked the girl and thought she made Ron a better person (which was probably true). The breakup had not been smooth, Ron had behaved like a total prick and George had the feeling that the thing with Pansy had been going on for a while already - which made him sick to the stomach, because Hermione didn’t deserve to be cheated on.

“How’s Hermione?” he enquired. As both Arthur and the young witch worked in the Ministry, they met each other quite often.

Arthur shook his head and a frown appeared between his eyebrows.

“She didn’t take the breakup well, I think. She’s working crazy hours. I don’t know if she ever sleeps. And she looks a mess. Not in an obvious way, but - well - she used to be part of our family, I know how she looks when she’s all right and I can tell you she is anything but.”

George sighed.

“And her boss…”

“Since her promotion, she’s only subjugate to the Minister of Magic and Kingsley hasn’t set a foot in her office for ages. Don’t blame him. He’s been busy with the flamethrower scandal. What I am saying is, there’s nobody to tell her to go home, nobody to tell her, it’s enough for the day. Harry and Ginny are in the states, Luna and Neville are busy with the children and I believe that apart from the people who were in Dumbledore’s army, she’s not really made that many friends. I think she’s very lonely. I have met her for coffee a couple of times, but you know, even though I like her, I am not the kind of company to cheer her up.”

Suddenly, a thought seemed to have crossed his mind.

“You should go visit her!” he said. 

George sighed, unsure.

“I haven’t seen her since the break up.”

“But you always got along so well. And -” he took a deep breath, bracing himself for what he was about to say “- she helped you after the war. When none of us could get through to you, she somehow did. I owe her a son. I owe her that she brought you back to us, to life. And I don’t want her to work herself to death. I want her to come back to life as well.”

George nodded. Arthur was right. Hermione had been his saviour after Fred’s death. She had not even done much. Everyone else had tried to talk to him, make him do stuff, shove him this way or that to make him participate in a world he did not want to be in any more. And then there had been Hermione, who had just listened and waited. One morning she had walked into the kitchen when he was playing with one of Mrs Weasley’s knives, considering whether there was any way to bewitch it so it would stab him in his sleep. She had not said anything, just taken the knife and put it down on the kitchen counter before hugging him silently. There had been a dozen situations like that, before he had finally broken down and cried one afternoon when there was nobody but her to witness him falling apart. She had handed him a handkerchief and let him cry on her shoulder for what felt like hours. Arthur was so right. He owed her his life. And if he could help her even a little, he’d definitely do so.

“Angelina?” he asked calmly. 

His assistant had followed their conversation and nodded.

“Just go ahead. I can handle things around here on my own for a couple of hours. Say hi to Hermione from me.”

 

###

 

She was on her way to grab another coffee when he caught her at the door. For a second, her mind went “Fred or George?” out of old habit, and she felt a familiar pain when she remembered there was only one of them left.

“Oh hi” she said, thinking that her hair must look a mess and that she was sleep deprived and probably quite a sad sight. 

“Hi, Hermione” George smiled. “Going for coffee?”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“No. Not at all. Umm… did anything happen?”

He shrugged.

“Other than: I cocked up a perfectly simple potion recipe last night and am now facing a green gue-y substance that needs thorough examination as to whether it might be useful for anything or was just a bloody waste of time? No, not really. My dad came by the shop today and mentioned you might need someone to buy you a coffee or a cup of hot chocolate and as I haven’t seen you for a while, I decided, I’d be that someone.”

She tried to smile, but it turned out lopsided and didn’t reach her eyes.

“Merlin, Hermione, you look like someone ran you over with a car.”

She sighed and took the arm he offered her, falling into stride next to him.    
  


“Always the gallant gentleman, aren’t you?”

“I don’t have to be gallant, I once wet through your blouse and your bra with my tears, so no need for gallantry.”

For a few steps, they were silent, contemplating what they had been through and what had brought them here.

“How are you coping these days?” Hermione enquired.

George shrugged.

“It’s okay, I guess. As okay as it can ever be. I still see Fred everywhere, miss him all the time. That’s not going to go away, so I better learn how to live with it.”

She nodded.

“I get that. I liked him, too.”

“He always said you were his third favourite female after Ginny and mum. Don’t know how Angelina fit into it, but I guess he meant ‘on a platonic level’ and therefore excluded her from the equation.”

They walked down to the lounge where members of different departments could sit down on comfy armchairs for a few minutes and enjoy a coffee and some cake. A tiny middle-aged witch was taking the orders and collecting dirty dishes with a wave of her wand at the same time. George eyed the display case next to the counter.

“Hmmm, look at that. There’s chocolate brownies. Do you want a chocolate brownie? Or do you prefer raspberry-cheesecake? And I’m not going to have you only have coffee or tea. We haven’t seen each other for ages. This needs to be a celebration and it isn’t a proper celebration without cake.”

They got two chocolate brownies in the end and sat down on a plushy sofa next to a tiny wooden table that was just big enough to balance two cups of tea and two small plates on. George leaned back into the cushions exclaiming that this was the kind of sofa that was incredibly comfy to sit on but impossible to get up out of again and wondered whether the ministry knew about this as it definitely did not lead to people finishing their break and getting back to work quickly. Hermione asked about how the shop was doing and he launched into a long explanation on which new products he had invented since their last meeting, how Percy had tried one of the new lemon drops and turned a funny colour and how Molly kept thinking he couldn’t live on his own and kept sending parcels full of food - which Errol the poor old sod could hardly carry any more. 

“We have lots of customers” he said. “Angelina started off on a half time basis, but I had to take her in full time now and we still have to work extra hours to get everything done. We could expand, open a second shop in Hogsmeade. But I'm so bad with numbers and Angelina isn’t much better. The whole financial side of things just drives me nuts already and it would be even worse if there were two shops to do the accounting for....”

He suddenly stopped in his rant and frowned. An idea had popped into his head. 

“How happy are you in your current job on a scale from one to ten?” he asked.

Hermione stared at him.

“What?”

“Just answer my question. Truthfully.”

She hesitated for a moment, before she answered.

“It’s not the best job in the world. Not very creative and not half as fun as what you do. But it’s decent enough and it pays well. I’d say it’s a seven?”

George beamed.

“In that case, Hermione Granger, I offer you a job. There’s plenty of calculating to be done, because both I and Angelina suck at it. But you’d also have the pleasure to work alongside a pretty talented witch and a super good-looking goofball of a wizard inventing and developing new amazing things that will make the world a better place by making people laugh a bit more. I can promise you, we can beat a solid seven by lengths. Also, I can pay you well. Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes is a gold-mine. You wouldn’t believe how much money we make from Pygmy Puffs alone.”

She looked at him, a little bewildered.

“Are you serious?”

George threw up his hands.

“Hey! You’re one of the most talented witches I know. Of course I am serious.”

“Why are you offering me a job?” 

The red-head sighed, then counted on his fingers.

“Firstly, because I really need a third person to run this business. Secondly, because I would like this person to be someone whom I like and who is clever enough to match my immense wit and inventiveness and thirdly, because you haven’t smiled properly once since I picked you up today and I think you need some fun in your life - which, I promise you, I can provide aplenty.”

He had been prepared for her to start crying. It was hardly surprising. She had been hanging on by a threat and a blind man could have seen that. Man, even Arthur had seen it and even though George was immensely fond of his father, he knew that Arthur was about as perceptive as a troll when it came to people’s feelings. So when she broke down, he was there just like she had been, holding her until the sobbing stopped.

“Ready to hand in your notice and help me out with my weird green potion?” he asked, as she noidily blew her nose.

She nodded, blotchy-eyed and dishevelled.

“Yes” she said. “Let’s go.”

 

###

 

Some days it was worse than others. George had dodged all mirrors and windows for almost the whole day, but he still kept seeing his brother everywhere. Damn the fact that there were so many red-haired people in britain. He should move to the mainland. To Italy. There were no redheads in Italy, were there?

Hermione shooed the last few people out of the shop for lunch-break and hung up the sign that said “Back in a tick with new shenanigans” before she turned the key in the front door and sighed.

“Merlin, what a day!” she exclaimed. “Is it always like that during the summer holidays?”

“It gets worse after the owls deliver the book lists”, Angelina noted from where she was cleaning up a puking pastilles incident with the Tergeo charm.

Hermione made a noise that indicated she did not want to face the hordes that would overrun the shop in a few weeks time.

“All right” she said “I am getting ice cream. Anyone else?”

Angelina shook her head. 

“I’m meeting Oliver for lunch at the Leaky Cauldron. But take George with you. He has a mopey day today.”

George tried to protest but Hermione silenced him with a glance.

“I noticed” she said simply. “George, we’re going for ice cream!”

He knew there was no point in debating with her. If Hermione had set her mind on something, she’d go through with it and if she had to use a binding spell and float him down the road above her head to get him to Florean’s ice parlour, she’d do exactly that. There was more dignity in just walking along. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. He tried to ignore it. When they had reached Florean Fortescue’s and taken a seat in the shade under one of the huge umbrellas and had ordered and received their vanilla-strawberry-creation, she took a deep breath.

“You never look into the windows” she stated.

George wasn’t surprised that she had noticed his habit and shrugged.

“Why?”

He sighed and started to explain what happened when he did and how he felt alone and like he had been left behind. 

“Mirrors are worse” he said. “And some days are worse than others. Today is pretty bad though.”

She nodded. For a few bites, she was silent, then she suddenly put her spoon down and reached for his hand. Her fingers were slender and her skin was a bit rough. 

“Turn your head!” she ordered. 

He followed her instructions and found that they were seated right in front of the window. The reflection showed a man and a woman, holding hands across a tiny table.

“You’re not alone, George”, Hermione said calmly. “I want you to know that.”

She leaned over and brushed her lips against his cheek, blushing slightly. Then she focussed back on her ice cream. She had not let go of his hand.

 

###

 

Angelina had gone home early while Hermione and George had stayed behind to clean up the shop and get everything set up for the next day. The letters from Hogwarts had finally been sent out and they expected Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes would be full of screaming pupils from dawn to dusk. Hermione was rolling up a new batch of Fizzy Fur-tongues - the result of all the research gone into the green-and-gue-y potion-mistake - and George had filled up the shelves with all their bestsellers and made sure there were enough Pygmy Puffs in storage to not run out of them. It had become a habit of young Hogwarts witches to collect the furry little things. George expected it to take maximum six months before they’d be banned from Hogwarts grounds.

Hermione appeared with a tray of tiny tongue-shaped sweets and put them into the display case next to the counter.

“Ready?” she asked.

George turned on the spot, once more going through all the things they had had to prepare.

“Love potions stocked up, Pygmy Puffs all ready, enough kettles ready next to the puking pastille testing table, I guess we’re good to go.”

She walked up to him and pulled him into a hug. It had become a habit between them and it felt familiar and nice. George put his arms around her and smiled when he noticed how her bushy hair tickled his nose. He liked how she was exactly a head shorter than him. Damn, he liked everything about her. Angelina had started making jokes about his being completely infatuated with Hermione Granger shortly after this amazing girl had kissed him on the cheek in Florean Fortescue’s. And she had been totally right. Yet, he was pretty sure Hermione did not feel anything but friendship towards him. A thought crossed his mind. A dangerous thought. But he felt adventurous today. Even if it meant he’d endanger whatever relationship they had.

“Do you want to head straight home or would you be up for a pint at the Cauldron?” he asked.

They had gone for drinks before. They were colleagues after all. Hermione agreed that drinks were in order to prepare for their big day and they left the shop through the back door and locked it behind them. 

As they walked past the other shops, George saw their reflections in the windows and he thought he heard his twin’s voice in his head. “Looks perfectly all right to me, brother.”

A bit up the road, he decided, life was too short to be wasted and took Hermione’s hand. She looked a little confused at first, but smiled then, tightening her grip for a second to show him she was okay with it.

When they reached the Leaky Cauldron, Hermione stopped in her tracks, not making any effort to go in. Instead she turned towards him, fixing her eyes on his.

“Can we just clear something up quickly?” she asked.

George shrugged, dreading what she’d have to say.

She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes for a second, before speaking very quickly at a rate of what seemed like three hundred words per second:

“I think we have a problem here. Because I like you. I mean, you’ve been so nice to give me this job and I love working with you and Angelina and I feel like I am alive again while at the ministry I was pretty much a walking corpse. We’ve been supporting each other for so long and I understand that for you that might be all this is. But - for me it’s not. I… I think I might be in love with you, George. And it’s scary as hell, and it’s probably the wrong place and the wrong time to say it but I needed to…”

He didn’t let her finish the sentence. He had wanted to hear her out, but a triumphant howl at the back of his head had drowned out his conscious thoughts and taken over. He swept her off her feet and kissed her with all the passion he had to offer. His heart beat as if he was running a sprint when she kissed him back, throwing her arms around his neck. 

When they had to stop for breath, he grinned like a madman.

“I don’t think there’s a problem, Hermione. Unless you count the fact that we will both be dead to the world and sleep deprived tomorrow morning when the masses will flood the shop. Because I want to spend this night with you. I want to spend every single minute of it awake and aware that this is not just a dream.”

She laughed then:  An open, wide laugh that made it impossible not to join in.

“I’ll be the happiest sleep-deprived shop-assistant ever!”

She pulled her wand from her pocket.

“My place or yours?” she asked, grinning mischieviously.


End file.
